Tullis Matson

Tullis Matson FRAgS HonDTech DL 

Tullis has practiced Artificial Reproductive Techniques (ART) in stallions and freezing semen for over 30 years. He formed Stallion AI Services Ltd in 2000, which is one of the most successful stallion collection centres in Europe, specializing in cryopreservation technology, offering semen collection services, fertility assessment and worldwide semen export. He pioneers and implements new advanced techniques, such as Post Castration, Epididymal Sperm Harvesting, using different gradients, and specialising in handling and collection from sub fertile stallions. 

In 2018 Tullis set up Gemini Genetics, one of the UK’s first animal tissue banks and in 2019, Elite Kennel Fertility for canine AI. In 2024, he established The Livestock Biobank, a regenerative biobank for farmed livestock, aimed at conserving the genetics of UK agricultural animals, to safeguard breeds and national food security. 

Tullis has travelled to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Germany, Ireland and around the UK to advise on equine health, welfare, and bio security to set up breeding centres, layout of laboratories, layout for horses, biosecurity issues and training facilities on equine reproduction. Over the past two years, he has successfully established biobanks in Japan, India, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and various other European countries. 

It was from Stallion AI Services that Tullis set up the charity, Nature’s SAFE, in 2020, with the simple but bold ambition to transfer biotechnology from this company to the challenge of halting and reversing the decline of biodiversity. Nature’s SAFE is a living biobank dedicated to preventing animal extinction by indefinitely preserving live cells from endangered species. As one of the only living biobanks in Europe, it stands apart as the only facility in the UK and Europe capable of reawakening live cells. 

In 2022, this work was honoured when Stallion AI Services was awarded The Queen’s Award for Enterprise 2022 for Innovation.  The innovation for this award was the charity, Nature’s SAFE. Now in its fifth year and with cryopreserved tissue samples from over 280 species, Nature’s SAFE has been nominated for the Earthshot Prize 2025 after being a runner-up for this prestigious award in 2023.